The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life (4 page)

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

—THOMAS CARLYLE

Over time, however, this age-old knowledge about the heart and respect for it became neglected.

 DEEPAK CHOPRA

It’s an old Indian story that God wanted to hide the truth and said, “I want to make it interesting for people and the one place I want to put it in is their hearts, because they look everywhere else, only to discover later that the truth is in their hearts.”

Many people spend their whole lives searching for fulfillment and happiness, often expecting to find it in the purchase of a beautiful house, a luxury car, or other material possessions. But when their satisfaction with these wears off, they look for other things to fill the emptiness: they change jobs, go on expensive vacations, or find a new life partner. Yet, as Santiago in
The Alchemist
discovers, the greatest treasure, your true source of happiness and fulfillment, is inside you, within your heart.

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

—RUMI

 MARCI SHIMOFF

Every spiritual tradition throughout history has spoken about the heart as being the seat of the soul, the diamond in the heart, the lotus in the heart, the temple in the heart. Every tradition speaks about the heart as being the essence of who we really are.

When you lose touch with your heart, you lose touch with your true self. You may feel unmoored and aimless; the world around you seems colorless, dull, and bleak. You cannot remember where you are going with your life. But as soon as you reconnect with your heart, everything begins to improve. You are never truly lost when you know your heart.

 DEEPAK CHOPRA

The way to connect with your soul, with your spirit, is just to bring your awareness to your heart. Bring your conscious awareness to your heart.

And the best way to connect with your heart, as Tolle, Chopra, and the other Co-creators recommend, is through silence.

Silence is the great teacher and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence.

—DEEPAK CHOPRA

Even when we look at the heart as a physical organ, as well as a source of spiritual power, it is a marvel.

 HOWARD MARTIN

Today, science does not know for sure what makes the heart start beating. We have this amazing part of our physiology that marks the beginning of life and yet somehow, some way, science today cannot tell us exactly why it begins to beat.

Our very first heartbeat begins spontaneously. The beating starts the moment that specialized heart cells form and multiply in the fetus. The cells beat even before the whole heart has formed. And they beat in unison. No perceptible external or internal stimulus starts them beating. Beating is intrinsic to the nature of heart cells.

 NEALE DONALD WALSCH

The heart starts beating when God says, “Hello, I’m here.” This is the beginning of life and I can prove it to you. Listen to your heart. The beat of your heart is the energy of life itself. It came from outside of your body, but it animates your body, and gives you the gift of who you are. What greater gift is there? How can we ignore that, how can we pay the most attention rather than the least attention to that?

The heart is propelled by an invisible energy—the energy of the universe, a force that permeates all matter and binds everything and everyone together. Nothing in the universe is more powerful, nothing holds more potential than that energy. It is called
chi
in Taoism,
ruah
in Hebrew culture,
prana
in the Hindu religion, and vital energy in Western philosophy. That energy originates outside the body and that energy gets your heartbeat going. It kick-starts all vital functions.

Neale Donald Walsch

 ISABEL ALLENDE